The Return of Lanny Budd

by Upton Sinclair

  ‘You’re having a lot of fun spending our money’, said Morrison with a grin. ‘But I suppose Washington would okay that’.

  XII

  Lanny, who had been thinking about this problem persistently, brought up aspects that were puzzling him. ‘I am wondering if a bunch of Germans can be carrying on a racket like this in Soviet territory without the authorities being in on the graft. And would they be German or Russian’?

  ‘It is hard to be sure’, said Morrison. ‘The country is still in confusion. The Soviet military would be in charge of major matters, but they probably leave civilian affairs to the Germans, just as we do with them here’.

  ‘The Germans would be Communists’?

  ‘Probably, but that’s not certain either, because the Reds are still making a pretence at non-party government. It’s wearing thinner all the time’.

  ‘My point is they’d be in on the graft. And would the higher authorities permit that, or would they consider it a shooting offence’?

  ‘They wouldn’t be worried about doing any harm to British or American currency values’, said Morrison. ‘But it might be they’d want to take it over and get the gravy for themselves’.

  ‘Have we made any complaint to the Soviet government about the matter’?

  ‘We’ve got tired of making complaints to the Reds, Mr Budd. They stall on everything and give us a lot of double talk. They look at you with a perfectly straight face and tell you a lot of lies, and go right on telling the same thing even when they know you have the proof in your hands. So we have developed an impulse to attend to things for ourselves. We’re not going to hurt anybody, but if we can burn that paper or melt those plates, we’ll think we’ve been smart’.

  ‘What I’m wondering’, said Lanny, ‘is whether it might be possible to throw a scare into those Völkischerbund fellows so that they would move into Germany where we could get at them’.

  ‘The trouble is how to apply the scare and to regulate it. We might make some more formal complaints to the Soviet government and force matters into the open; but that might result in their taking over the money, circulating it underground, and blandly telling us they know nothing about it. In the case of these Himmler boys we just decided that we’d try to pull off a stunt by ourselves and let the Reds find out about it after it’s over’.

  ‘You mean you would try to smuggle raiders into the Soviet zone’?

  ‘Don’t even talk about anything so improper’, said Mr. Morrison, but somehow his tone was not convincing. ‘All we are trying to do is to find out where that stuff is, and then there will be time enough to consider what comes next. Perhaps you will be back in America and won’t have to know anything about it’. He smiled his most friendly smile.

  11 HONOUR ROOTED IN DISHONOUR

  I

  Lanny went back to his work at R.I.A.S., hunting up old acquaintances in Berlin and getting information he could use—always with a double use in mind, the other place being Edgemere, New Jersey. Two or three days passed and there was a telephone call, Monck on the wire, speaking cryptically as always, for the Berlin telephone wires were tapped by the Reds, except for the separate system A.M.G. had set up for itself.

  ‘Ferdinand’s father is in town’, he announced.

  ‘You don’t mean it’! exclaimed Lanny. ‘Which sector’?

  ‘His own’, said the telephone voice.

  ‘What’s he doing’?

  ‘Not sure; but probably it has something to do with his legitimate business’. The word legitimate was heavily emphasised, and Lanny understood that it meant Kurt’s music. Perhaps he had come to Berlin seeking a publisher, as he had been accustomed to do in the old days; or perhaps, if he couldn’t find a publisher, he was arranging with a printer at his own expense—or at the expense of purchasers of Himmler money.

  The voice went on, ‘We don’t know where he’s staying—all he said was with a friend. But he had lunch with Ferdinand in the Strontheim café, and it seems he eats there regularly. You might go to-day’.

  ‘But he won’t talk to me’!

  ‘You remember the last conversation we had and the last topic we discussed’?

  Lanny thought, then said, ‘I remember’.

  ‘Okay, then go to it; don’t lose the chance’. That was all over the telephone, and no more was needed. ‘Throw a scare into them’, Lanny had said. And coming from the office he had discussed with Monck how it could be done. Now Monck said, ‘Go to it’, and Lanny trusted his judgment.

  It was just a matter of taking a stroll through the bomb-wrecked streets of Berlin, past blocks of buildings with great gaps in them like missing teeth in a human face. There were spaces which had been cleared entirely, and there were others with half-wrecked buildings in which people were hiding in cellars or climbing half-wrecked stairs to rooms that had part of a wall missing. There were buildings that had beams sticking up like the piles of a pier that has been swept away by a storm.

  And one of these streets, which looked like any other street, was the boundary between the West sector and the East. You just walked across it and nobody paid any attention to you. You didn’t get into trouble unless you made trouble, or unless by chance you were someone whom the Soviet authorities especially disliked. Lanny took a chance that they had not found out the identity of the Herr Frolich on that disliked American radio; at any rate the policemen on the street wouldn’t know, nor would the Red soldiers; he hadn’t been photographed and pasted up on bulletin boards like wanted criminals in American post offices. He was conspicuous because of his good clothes; but even so he could stroll down Unter den Linden.

  II

  So he came to the popular café where reasonably good meals were still served to those who had the money. It was just before noon, and it was already crowded. Lanny told the head waiter that he was looking for a friend; he strolled about and, seeing no friend, got himself a seat not too far from the door and facing it, and prepared for one of those long repasts which are the custom among the intellectuals and the leisure class in Europe. You order a small meal with a cup of coffee or a bottle of wine, and the waiter brings you the latest edition of the Tägliche, and you sit and eat in leisurely fashion, and read and take a sip now and then, and read some more.

  Lanny read, but only a line or two at a time, and then he would look up to see who was coming in. It was a long wait, an hour or so. He made it all right by calling for another paper and giving the waiter a tip. Then at last his heart gave a jump: there was Kurt Meissner coming in at the door, and alone; Kurt Meissner, tall, long-faced, and grave, dressed in a suit well worn and unpressed—the fashion among all Germans, and especially among East Germans. Lanny got up and went toward him with eagerness he didn’t have to feign. ‘Kurt! What a piece of luck! What are you doing in Berlin? Come, sit with me! Do, please’!

  It was a table for two and the request was hard to refuse. Kurt manifested no haste, but he came. Lanny’s manner was full of happiness; Kurt’s manner was dour.

  The waiter came with the menu, and Kurt ordered ravioli. Lanny realised that he would have to take something which could be eaten with a fork alone; doubtless at home the faithful Elsa cut up his meat for him. No comment was to be made about that. When the waiter had departed Lanny said, ‘I’m so glad to have run into you, Kurt. I thought I was never going to see you again. Tell me, what are you doing in Berlin’?

  ‘I am here on business connected with my music’.

  ‘Are they going to publish you, Kurt?’

  ‘I’m not sure’. Evidently he was not going to be seduced, not even by the most seductive of topics.

  But Lanny’s programme was to attack and keep on attacking. ‘I think about you so often, Kurt. I wish so that our friendship could be resumed. I wish so that I could help you’.

  ‘I have told you that I am not in need of help’.

  ‘I know, but I cannot believe it, Kurt. How are you able to live? How are you going to get along in the present situation here’?

&
nbsp; ‘This is not the place to discuss it, Lanny’.

  ‘I will lower my voice; no one will hear us. If you see anyone standing behind me you can cough, and I will stop. I will tell you something that has just come to my knowledge. You have heard, I suppose, of the Katyn forest and what happened there’?

  ‘I have heard the story’.

  ‘I won’t name any names. You know who was blamed for it, and you know that they had nothing to do with it. You know who actually did that most hideous action. There must be other mass graves which have never been discovered. There were fourteen or fifteen thousand officers who disappeared off the face of the earth; they were put under the earth. And that ought to show you the kind of people you are dealing with’.

  ‘I do not need anybody to point that out to me’.

  ‘You know the pretences they make. They believe in art and culture; they are going to raise civilisation to a higher level; but what they do is force everybody into one mould, their mould. It is the end of all freedom, all initiative—and how can art or culture thrive under such circumstances? You have been a free man, you have written what you believed, and you cannot possibly write what you pretend to believe’.

  ‘You cannot know what I believe’.

  ‘I know your inmost being, and I have the firm conviction that it cannot change. I am speaking to the man I used to know so well and for so many years. Friendship such as ours cannot be put aside, and it cannot be destroyed. We have differed in our ideas of the means, of policy, but our goals have always been the same and always will be. If you are trying to repress that inner being of yours, you may succeed for a time but not forever. I am appealing to that being in the hope of bringing him back to life’.

  But Kurt’s grim look did not change. ‘You are being eloquent’, he said, ‘but you are mistaken. I know what I am and I know what I am doing’.

  ‘You are deceiving yourself. You are telling yourself that you can deal with these new people, that you can pretend to agree with them and fool them. You believe that you can live a life that you hate, but you cannot; it will wither up your creative powers. The means will become the end, and you will be deceiving yourself instead of others’.

  ‘You know more about me than I know about myself. I do not recognise your portrait’.

  ‘I know exactly what you are thinking about—your family. But you must understand, families here are not let alone to grow up by accident. Children are taken from their parents and are disciplined and propagandised. They sing songs—you know the kind, I don’t have to describe them to you. They will come home singing them to you, and how will you like it? They will be taught that their first duty in life is to spy upon you. You may think that you can train them to hate the enemy, but surely you will find out that little minds, which are spontaneous and impulsive, cannot be made into mature intriguers. They will inevitably let out some secret, and that will be the end of you’.

  III

  Kurt coughed, and Lanny fell silent. The waiter brought the food and put it on the table. He withdrew, but not very far, and obviously was remaining for the purpose of spying—a common purpose at that time. So Lanny inquired whether Kurt knew anyone who had valuable paintings, and he talked about that subject until the waiter had to go to another table. Then he resumed, ‘I am pleading with you on behalf of the Western world; it needs your genius and should have it. You are a man of the West, all your thought is of the West. How could Goethe, how could Beethoven, have lived in this world where you are now? Did anyone ever tell those men what to write or how to write it? You know, and I know, that German culture is based upon freedom. German science is based upon the right to speculate and teach—even the most reactionary rulers of German states never dared to interfere with academic freedom. But how is it here? I don’t have to go into details, you know it as well as I do. What these people want from German science is only rockets, jet planes, and atomic bombs—that sort of progress. What they want is to get the Ruhr and turn it to the manufacture of such weapons. When they get that they will have France and Britain at their mercy. And what will the Germans be then? Slaves and robots’!

  ‘This is no place for such a discussion’, protested Kurt again, and more sharply.

  ‘I am talking low, and no one can hear us. I am pleading with you to let me help you find a way to get into the Western world. I will take care of you and your family financially until you get on your feet. My father would be delighted to do it if I asked him. I will stand sponsor for you; I will certify that you are not engaged in any political activities. You can become a great artist once more, and not a puppet artist like Shostakovich’.

  ‘I have told you that I am not interested in all this—’

  ‘I’m trying to save you from certain doom. They are letting you live here, but I know, and you must know, that it cannot continue long. They are trying to keep the Germans quiet, they are trying to keep all the people quiet, until they get their grip on the country firmly fixed; then your time will come. You must be aware that they know your record, all your associates, who your friends have been—those whom they hate most, or did hate most in this world, and still fear. And you may be certain they are keeping watch upon you now. I don’t know who your friends are, but you can be sure that one of them is a spy. Ask yourself, Which one, man or woman, and what is he informing about you and putting on the record? When the time comes you will be hauled up for questioning; you will be taken to the torture chamber; you will be told what to confess, and you will confess it: any monstrous crimes they have thought up, and you will accuse anybody they want to get rid of. Your children will be sent to a state farm, your wife will go to work in a coal mine, and you will be sent to the gas chamber or stood up against the wall and riddled with bullets’.

  ‘Hush’! whispered Kurt. The waiter had come back to his station, and Kurt raised his finger and beckoned. The man came.

  ‘My cheque’, said the guest.

  ‘Is there anything wrong with the food, sir’? inquired the waiter, looking at the plate which had barely been touched.

  ‘Nothing is wrong with the food. I do not feel well. The cheque, please’. He took the cheque, looked at it, and counted out a number of marks, enough to include a tip. He rose and without a word more stalked out of the restaurant.

  IV

  Lanny went back and reported to Monck, ‘I’m pretty sure I scared him, but what will come of it remains to be seen’. Monck, in turn, told him that he had had a talk with the girl, and she was ready for anything. She had gone to the Soviet military authorities to try to get permission to seek the members of her family in Wendefurth. So Lanny went back to work at R.I.A.S.; and three or four days later Monck called him on the A.M.G. ’phone. ‘She’s gone in’, Monck said, using no names; and that was all. He had told Lanny that they would have a code for communicating. She would write letters, innocent in appearance. On the other hand, they might never hear from her again. It was like seeing somebody jump into the crater of a volcano.

  Berlin was a great city caught in a fantastic plight. It was half in ruins, especially the important, the ‘downtown’, sections, in which business and industry were housed. More than three million people still lived in its 340 square miles, and they had to have food every day and work when possible. They lived as best they could in the ruins, and hundreds of new people came daily to join them in their discomfort.

  The new arrivals came from countries to the east, many of them walking with no more possessions than they could carry on their backs or their heads. The boundaries of the metropolis measured 144 miles, and all the surrounding territory was Russian. There was no way to keep people from sneaking in, and to send them back to the Reds meant death or imprisonment worse than death. Some could be sent into West Germany, but they would have to pass through Soviet-held territory, so only as many could be sent as could be flown. They were much less than welcome in West Germany, which already had seven million refugees to take care of. So the American Army was kept busy building barrac
ks, and American ships were busy bringing food from home—such were the penalties a civilised country paid for having won a war.

  The four sectors of the city were ruled by four different armies. They were supposed to have one civilian government, elected by the population. This population was Socialist and had elected a Social-Democratic mayor, Ernst Reuter; but the four military administrations had squabbled over him—the Reds wouldn’t permit him to serve because he was anti-Soviet. They had compromised upon his deputy, and so the once-proud capital of imperial Germany had a woman mayor, Luise Schröder.

  The city had been not merely the political but the intellectual and cultural capital of Germany. The Soviets fully intended to take possession of it all; they saw themselves as a Red wave rolling over that populous and important island. They had planned it from a long way back, and an essential part of the plan was to take possession of the minds of the population.

  When their troops had swept into the city one of the places they had seized was the splendid, undamaged building of Radio Berlin. Thus they came into possession of a great library of books, files of clippings, and a stock of recorded music; also a highly trained staff who knew Germany and the Germans and could be kept at work and told what to do. When the division of the city was agreed upon, this radio station was in the British sector, but the Russians held on to it, refusing to share control with their polite allies. They continued to hold on to it even after they had put other stations on the air at Potsdam, Leipzig, and Dresden.